Welcome to French at MJS

Intent:

At Melbourne Junior School, we want to enable the children to develop their ability and confidence in another language. Over the course of their time with us, they will listen to, speak and translate simple French, through songs, games and spoken and written exercises, and will learn about the customs and cultures of French-speaking countries. To this end, we follow the national curriculum for languages, which aims to ensure that all pupils:

• understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
• speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
• can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learnt
• discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied.

Implementation:

We currently follow an in-house scheme of work (SOW) . The curriculum is carefully planned around logical pupil progression in the ‘3 pillars’ of language: phonics, vocabulary, grammar. Each year group is introduced to new topics as well as revisiting those already covered to enable the children to build on previous learning, leading to progression across the Key Stage. It offers opportunities for listening, speaking and writing, as well as introducing them to a cultural appreciation of French-speaking countries.

Impact:

By the end of Year 6:

• pupils are able to ask and answer simple questions in French
• pupils can translate familiar language written in simple sentences from French to English, and can use context to translate unfamiliar words
• pupils can write a paragraph of simple sentences in French.